John Dunning was born Jan. 9, 1942, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was raised in Charleston, S.C., is married, and has two adult children.

Dunning always wanted to write, but was a poor student. He left high school in the 10th grade partly because of an inability to concentrate and absorb lectures. Four years ago he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, a malady that could not have been imagined in the glorious 1950s.

"This may explain my affection for typewriters," he says. "Unlike a computer, a great old manual typewriter is an honest machine. You do your work, it does its work. There's no sneaky nonsense, no hidden screens that pop up and won't go away, and at no time in my 35 years as a writer have I ever 'lost' anything because I hit a certain key, failed to hold my mouth right, or sneezed at the wrong moment."

Dunning intends to become a poster boy for ADD. "There are some people, including legislators, who don't believe in it. They should walk in my shoes."

Often this inability to concentrate demands eight or 10 hours of effort for two good hours of work. Sometimes it leads a writer away from his story, causing a month's worth of drifting, rambling around, groping. In those times I really have to work to get my story, whatever it is, back on track."

Dunning got a GED certificate from the state of South Carolina in the early 1960s. "Historically, it's an interesting document — not because it's mine but because it states that I am the equivalent of the average white high school grad in the state. Now if that's not an official admission that those old 'separate-but-equal' doctrines never worked, what is?

"I was a raging failure early in life. Quit high school, then got kicked out of the Army with a broken eardrum after only two weeks, went on to work in a Charleston glass shop for $1.05 an hour, and looked to be on a fast track to nowhere.

Dunning made his break with Charleston in 1964, came to Denver with some friends, worked in a glass shop for a time, then got on the racetrack and went with the horses for two years. He worked for horse trainers in Denver, Idaho and California, finally hitting the "big time" at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif. He calls that a magic time in his life.

In 1966 he got a job as a clerk in the library at The Denver Post, which was then the city's afternoon daily. Eventually he became the oldest copy boy on the newspaper, and from that he began writing stories. After accumulating more than 50 clips, he was given a trial run as a reporter and soon was put on the newspaper's three-man investigative team.

"This only goes to prove that the hardest thing about any job is getting it," Dunning says. "I was a collector of old-time radio shows for 30 years. I grew up with this stuff. It was like collecting part of my own life. I parlayed that into a weekly radio show, which I hosted on Denver radio for more than 25 years.

Dunning worked in politics for a while, as campaign press secretary to candidates for mayor of Denver, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder's first press aide.

He also has taught writing and journalism at the University of Denver and Metropolitan State College.

In 1973 he worked on the Robert Altman film, Thieves Like Us. Altman's film was based on the 1937 novel by Edward Anderson, and he wanted it scored with old radio shows. Dunning's job, which lasted six weeks, was to find the right sounds to fit his story.

Dunning, with wife Helen, opened the Old Algonquin Bookstore in 1984 in east Denver. The store closed in 1994, two years after his Booked to Die was published. He has been an online bookseller ever since.